Positive Reinforcement
Got time for a quick story?
So, just generally speaking, I have sort of begun to feel that my poker play has plateaued of late. I haven't had a significant, sizable cash in a long time. I'm too lazy to check right now, but off the top of my head, I bet it's been a year or more since I won a meaningful amount of money. I have been playing my cards well enough, but seem to have lost a little bit of the edge, the top 10% of skill that makes all the difference in getting acceptable results. Basically, I have been a break even player for the last year, treading water with the other fish.
With my waning abilities close in mind, I got to Vegas with aspirations of proving to myself that I still posses the skills that would justify me to continuing to play poker seriously. I haven't had many opportunities to play live, so I was also looking forward to flexing my neglected brick-and-mortar muscles as well.
Enter Christopher Jackson. The aforementioned "Chris" who picked me up from the airport who is the only friend I have in this bright city. Chris is an astoundingly good poker player, a great decision-maker with a knack for that well-timed aggression that is the mantra of poker players everywhere. He hasn't been playing much in the last year though -- just too much on his plate to spend all his free time grinding the low limits. But we're here, in the same town, and we decide to run some games for old time's sake. Littly dinky stuff on UltimateBet; I ship him $20 to start working up. In the first night, he pushes it up to around $75, and is thrilled just to be back in the game, asserting his dominance.
Well, we get up the following morning and find that UB has locked his account out of the blue. They e-mail him and tell him that he needs to provide an "original copy" (oxymoron, much?) of his license, utility bill, banking information, and front and back of a credit card. This is an account that he has had for at least four years, but has been laying dormant for a while prior to our little session. UB support is notoriously slow and incompetent in their handling of trivial little issues like this, and it takes a full day before they get back to him and restore access to his account. This is boring, I realize, but is a fundamental piece of the puzzle that was about to unfold.
Meanwhile...
I let him play some on my PokerStars account, because I have around $200 in there that is seldom used. It's just sitting there. I'm not sure why he went for them, but he found himself playing in their WSOP Step Satellites. This is a unique series of tournaments in which you can work your way up from a $7.50 Step 1 single-table satellite all the way to Step 6, a $2,100 sit-n-go with double chips and a chance to win a WSOP package. The intriguing thing about this format revolves around the payout structure. In a typical cash SnG, the top three spots receive money, in something like a 50-30-20% breakdown of the total prize pool. In these steps however, typically spots 1-2 pay a ticket to the next step, and several other places payout a ticket to retry the same level or the level below. So you can spend a good deal of time working your way through the system.
Well, they seemed pretty easy, and I was running bad on UB, so I figured I'd jump on Stars and give them a shot. Let me just preface this by saying that I never play on Stars. That's why the money is just sitting there. I occasionally grind a little razz just for shits and grins, but I have a very hard time adjusting to the play on that site. Since he is using my account, I log on to Chris' account to try my hand.
Steps 1-3 are all turbo structures, which is not my preference. Within two hours though, I am sitting pretty at Step 4, which has a buyin of $215. I take that one down with relative ease also, and now it's starting to get late. I take a little stretch break, assess my state of awake-ness, and enter Step 5, a $700 entry. With one eye open, and severely lacking in brain function, I plow through it and take one of the top two spots and a ticket to the final table, Step 6.
Even when you're on a roll, you have to know when to fold 'em, and I am cashed for the night. I didn't get a chance to play the big satellite for a couple days, but it was looming noticeably in the back of my mind. So tonight, I finally get the right combination of motivation and confidence and dig into Step 6.
Chris was quite excited by this time, having watched me steam through the field in the first five steps. Starting around Step 3, he had been very interested in my progress. By the middle of Step 4, he was paying as much attention to the game as I was. He would watch me and offer his input when I was faced with a decision. Several times, he almost certainly saved me from extinction with some direct reminders to be patient and play solid. It has become a joint effort. Despite the fact that I was physically playing the games, Chris' contribution was huge.
So, Step 6 is a battle. We start with 3,000 chips, but the blinds move fast on Stars, and there are some fantastic players at my table. Fairly early on, I double up when I flop a set of 8's against A-K on a K-high flop. All the money goes in, and at the first break, I have about 4,500 chips. The second hour was simply brutal. At that stage, with so much on the line, it became absolutely critical that I make every decision correctly. The slightest slip-up really could really cost me the win. Before I really know it though, I am heads-up against a very skilled player. We trade blows back and forth. Fairly early on, I have a 2-1 chip lead, and feel like it might actually happen. He begins to get a feel for my play though, and he won some well-timed pots to take a 2-1 chip lead of his own. At this point, I had around 8,000 chips, and the blinds are 500-1,000. I had to kick it up into aggressive mode, and I dragged in a few pots to stay afloat for the time being. I start to catch a few hands and am playing most hands in the dreaded all-in-or-fold mindset. He rolls over a little, and within just a few hands, I have a 2-1 lead again, and feel like I have complete control over the match. I get K-K on the button and put in a normal raise to 3,000. He has to move soon, and picks this as his spot to push his last 9,000 chips in, which I call faster than you can say "ship it". I am dreadfully scared that he will show me A-8 or something, and I will get bit by something nasty on the board. To mine (and Chris') complete delight, his cards flip over K-6, and he is in awful shape to stay alive. He picks up a gutshot straight draw on the turn, but I dodge his four outs and watch as all 30,000 chips slide into my stack in what feels like super slow-mo.
I just won a 2008 WSOP package.
After I take a quick moment to jump around the room, Chris and I sit on his couch in utter disbelief. We have already decided that we want the money, but never made any formal arrangements as to how we'd split it. If I'm honest, I believe I deserve about 75% of it. But Chris seems to have already decided that it was (obviously) going to be 50-50. I feel just the tiniest bit slighted, but I certainly am thrilled to pocket $6,500 on my $7.50 investment. And I am also thrilled to help Chris out; I know the money means a lot to him in his current situation as well.
When all is said and done, I have earned my largest cash to date, $12,500, and have a renewed faith in my abilities and zeal for playing top-notch poker 100% of the time.
So, just generally speaking, I have sort of begun to feel that my poker play has plateaued of late. I haven't had a significant, sizable cash in a long time. I'm too lazy to check right now, but off the top of my head, I bet it's been a year or more since I won a meaningful amount of money. I have been playing my cards well enough, but seem to have lost a little bit of the edge, the top 10% of skill that makes all the difference in getting acceptable results. Basically, I have been a break even player for the last year, treading water with the other fish.
With my waning abilities close in mind, I got to Vegas with aspirations of proving to myself that I still posses the skills that would justify me to continuing to play poker seriously. I haven't had many opportunities to play live, so I was also looking forward to flexing my neglected brick-and-mortar muscles as well.
Enter Christopher Jackson. The aforementioned "Chris" who picked me up from the airport who is the only friend I have in this bright city. Chris is an astoundingly good poker player, a great decision-maker with a knack for that well-timed aggression that is the mantra of poker players everywhere. He hasn't been playing much in the last year though -- just too much on his plate to spend all his free time grinding the low limits. But we're here, in the same town, and we decide to run some games for old time's sake. Littly dinky stuff on UltimateBet; I ship him $20 to start working up. In the first night, he pushes it up to around $75, and is thrilled just to be back in the game, asserting his dominance.
Well, we get up the following morning and find that UB has locked his account out of the blue. They e-mail him and tell him that he needs to provide an "original copy" (oxymoron, much?) of his license, utility bill, banking information, and front and back of a credit card. This is an account that he has had for at least four years, but has been laying dormant for a while prior to our little session. UB support is notoriously slow and incompetent in their handling of trivial little issues like this, and it takes a full day before they get back to him and restore access to his account. This is boring, I realize, but is a fundamental piece of the puzzle that was about to unfold.
Meanwhile...
I let him play some on my PokerStars account, because I have around $200 in there that is seldom used. It's just sitting there. I'm not sure why he went for them, but he found himself playing in their WSOP Step Satellites. This is a unique series of tournaments in which you can work your way up from a $7.50 Step 1 single-table satellite all the way to Step 6, a $2,100 sit-n-go with double chips and a chance to win a WSOP package. The intriguing thing about this format revolves around the payout structure. In a typical cash SnG, the top three spots receive money, in something like a 50-30-20% breakdown of the total prize pool. In these steps however, typically spots 1-2 pay a ticket to the next step, and several other places payout a ticket to retry the same level or the level below. So you can spend a good deal of time working your way through the system.
Well, they seemed pretty easy, and I was running bad on UB, so I figured I'd jump on Stars and give them a shot. Let me just preface this by saying that I never play on Stars. That's why the money is just sitting there. I occasionally grind a little razz just for shits and grins, but I have a very hard time adjusting to the play on that site. Since he is using my account, I log on to Chris' account to try my hand.
Steps 1-3 are all turbo structures, which is not my preference. Within two hours though, I am sitting pretty at Step 4, which has a buyin of $215. I take that one down with relative ease also, and now it's starting to get late. I take a little stretch break, assess my state of awake-ness, and enter Step 5, a $700 entry. With one eye open, and severely lacking in brain function, I plow through it and take one of the top two spots and a ticket to the final table, Step 6.
Even when you're on a roll, you have to know when to fold 'em, and I am cashed for the night. I didn't get a chance to play the big satellite for a couple days, but it was looming noticeably in the back of my mind. So tonight, I finally get the right combination of motivation and confidence and dig into Step 6.
Chris was quite excited by this time, having watched me steam through the field in the first five steps. Starting around Step 3, he had been very interested in my progress. By the middle of Step 4, he was paying as much attention to the game as I was. He would watch me and offer his input when I was faced with a decision. Several times, he almost certainly saved me from extinction with some direct reminders to be patient and play solid. It has become a joint effort. Despite the fact that I was physically playing the games, Chris' contribution was huge.
So, Step 6 is a battle. We start with 3,000 chips, but the blinds move fast on Stars, and there are some fantastic players at my table. Fairly early on, I double up when I flop a set of 8's against A-K on a K-high flop. All the money goes in, and at the first break, I have about 4,500 chips. The second hour was simply brutal. At that stage, with so much on the line, it became absolutely critical that I make every decision correctly. The slightest slip-up really could really cost me the win. Before I really know it though, I am heads-up against a very skilled player. We trade blows back and forth. Fairly early on, I have a 2-1 chip lead, and feel like it might actually happen. He begins to get a feel for my play though, and he won some well-timed pots to take a 2-1 chip lead of his own. At this point, I had around 8,000 chips, and the blinds are 500-1,000. I had to kick it up into aggressive mode, and I dragged in a few pots to stay afloat for the time being. I start to catch a few hands and am playing most hands in the dreaded all-in-or-fold mindset. He rolls over a little, and within just a few hands, I have a 2-1 lead again, and feel like I have complete control over the match. I get K-K on the button and put in a normal raise to 3,000. He has to move soon, and picks this as his spot to push his last 9,000 chips in, which I call faster than you can say "ship it". I am dreadfully scared that he will show me A-8 or something, and I will get bit by something nasty on the board. To mine (and Chris') complete delight, his cards flip over K-6, and he is in awful shape to stay alive. He picks up a gutshot straight draw on the turn, but I dodge his four outs and watch as all 30,000 chips slide into my stack in what feels like super slow-mo.
I just won a 2008 WSOP package.
After I take a quick moment to jump around the room, Chris and I sit on his couch in utter disbelief. We have already decided that we want the money, but never made any formal arrangements as to how we'd split it. If I'm honest, I believe I deserve about 75% of it. But Chris seems to have already decided that it was (obviously) going to be 50-50. I feel just the tiniest bit slighted, but I certainly am thrilled to pocket $6,500 on my $7.50 investment. And I am also thrilled to help Chris out; I know the money means a lot to him in his current situation as well.
When all is said and done, I have earned my largest cash to date, $12,500, and have a renewed faith in my abilities and zeal for playing top-notch poker 100% of the time.
posted by Eric at
1:26 PM
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